I like those advertisements from the old days when they used decorative fonts and an artist’s drawing of the product. The wanted posters of the Old West often had a hand pointing to the reward amount. The pointing hand, I learned recently, is called a manicule (derived from manus, the Latin word for hand).

Here is some interesting reading (at least I found it interesting; Carolyn thinks I’m a bit off my rocker): Toward a History of the Manicule (or see the pdf version), by William H. Sherman. Basically, he researched that readers from the Renaissance onward would draw a manicule in the margin pointing to the text that they wanted to mark as important. They indicate to take note. This is important. Printers later adopted it as a visual cue for the reader that what follows  is important.

The set of examples (mostly signage) on the  Flicker collection of manicules is growing. One clever woman is even following the beck and call of (nearly every) manicule she sees (Yes manicule)! It seems to be getting more use. I love that. Thank you, Mr. Sherman, for your research on these “pointing hand thingies” and for resurrecting the name for us to use.

We at BuyChimes use the manicule to point out that what follows is important. In fact, it’s probably the most important thing for a wind chime—its sound. And what better device to use?

Jeff

BuyChimes.com